"Invisible Ink is a powerful tool for anyone who wants to become a better screenwriter. With elegance and precision, Brian McDonald uses his deep understanding of story and character to pass on essential truths about dramatic writing. Ignore him at your peril."
—Jim Taylor (Academy Award?- winning screenwriter of Sideways and Election)

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Ever since Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction was released, people have talked in awe about how
that film and others have played with traditional notions of story structure.
That film tells its story out of sequence and is therefore innovative, or so
the reasoning goes. This is a mistake. Telling stories out of sequence is
actually as traditional as it gets.

The idea that story structure is ruled by linear chronology
is a common error. As I have often written, and told students, one must look at
how stories are told in real life. One must study stories not in their written
form, or some other medium like TV or films, but in their natural habitat.

Real-life storytelling, person-to-person, is the parent form
of every other form of storytelling. In this ancient and most-used form of
storytelling is contained every structural element of story.

Since stories are all around us all the time, if you can
train yourself to pay attention to everyday speech, you will learn more than
I—or any book, blog, or teacher—could ever tell you about storytelling.

So, let’s look at stories in their natural habitat to see
how we are not married to linear chronology in stories and why.

Someone might tell you a story like this:

STORYTELLER:So, I go into work this morning –
traffic was crazy so I was about five or six minutes late. I grab some coffee
from the break-room. Someone had brought donuts so I grabbed one and everyone
in the office started talking about their long weekend and what they did. We
did that for about 10, 15 minutes until I noticed the time and mentioned that
we should get back to work. Someone was in the middle of a story, so they all
stayed in the break-room and I headed back to my office. On the way my supervisor
stops me and tells me that I’m fired for too much socializing.

That is one way someone might tell you a story, but it isn’t
very likely. Why?It’s a little
boring. Why? Because the listener has no idea why they are listening.Most of us are natural storytellers and
understand that power of structure and the manipulation of chronology.Most of us know to start with the most
interesting part of the story to cue people in to why they are listening.

TYPICAL STORYTELLER: I got fired
today! So, I go into work this morning –
traffic was crazy so I was about five or six minutes late. I grab some coffee
from the break-room. Someone had brought donuts so I grabbed one and everyone
in the office started talking about their long weekend and what they did. We
did that for about 10, 15 minutes then I noticed the time and mentioned that we
should get back to work. Someone was in the middle of a story, so they all
stayed in the break-room and I headed back to my office.On the way my supervisor stops me and
tells me that I’m fired for too much socializing.

See how this small change impacts the story? Putting the
point up front works to engage one’s audience; that sometimes means hopping to
the end of the timeline. “I got fired today” is the end of the story. It’s what
everything is leading to. But notice how your brain barely notices this time
shift. It’s because it is a natural way for us to tell stories and not anyone’s
invention or construct.

We all know people who tell stories the way I did in the
first example and those people make us very impatient because as listeners we
are straining to ascertain just which
details of their stories are germane.

The myth is that Hollywood invented story structure. They
did not—they capitalized on it. Structure is not about adhering to page counts
or putting the story events in a predetermined order, but rather understanding what
order of events ismost effective
for the story one happens to be telling.

My advice—listen to people talk. Listen to people tell
stories when they don’t even know that they are doing it. If the story is
engaging, chances are they are instinctively using sound structural principles.
You can learn all the “rules” of storytelling by listening to people. All you
have to do is take the time.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

You can’t beat Billy Wilder—the guy was amazing, so good
that it’s almost scary. He was a screenwriter first, and if he had remained a
writer, he would still be a legend; he and his early writing partner CharlesBrackett wrote several hits for Paramount studios.Because of this success, he was able to convince the
studio to let him try his hand at directing. He went on to direct a string of
classics. Stalag 17 is one of those
classics.

Billy Wilder and early writing partner Charles Brackett

I should state that I don’t think that the film is
perfect—much of the comedy doesn’t age well. It’s much too broad for modern
sensibilities and often distracting. (I go into more detail about this in my
book Invisible Ink.) Still, in most
ways, it is a solid piece of work that entertains.

Stalag 17, made in
1953, takes place in a German POW camp during World War II. The prisoners are
all American airmen, who begin to suspect that one of their fellow prisoners is
working with the Germans and feeding them valuable information. Which of them
is the traitor?

The suspicion falls on a man named Sergeant J.J. Sefton,
played by one of my favorite actors of all time, William Holden (who won an
Academy Award for the role). Sefton seems to get favors from the Germans, and
he seems privy to information that must have come from them. He also has a
trunk full of supplies and goodies that the other prisoners do not have: Sefton
has soap to wash with while the others do not. Sefton eats eggs, while the
others must eat watery potato soup.

William Holden as Sefton

Not only is Sefton is permitted to visit the off-limits area
where the female prisoners are held, but he charges all the men in the camp to
have a look at the women through a telescope he has managed to acquire.

For all of these reasons, when the group suspects that there
is a spy amongst them, Sefton is the prime suspect. Sefton contends that it’s a
POW camp, after all, and that he has just learned to live by his wits. He has
learned how to trade well and that’s how he gets things, but that that doesn’t
make him a traitor.

At some point two new prisoners are introduced to the
barracks. One of them is a guy that Sefton knows—a rich guy named Lieutenant
Dunbar. Sefton doesn’t like Dunbar, believing that the rich guy has had life
easy because of his wealth.

Dunbar and Sefton

This is great story construction. The inclusion of
Lieutenant Dunbar is at the heart of what makes this story work: The group is
judging Sefton the same way Sefton is judging Dunbar.

Wilder shows Dunbar to be a team player, even though he
outranks everyone in the barracks and is worth 25 million bucks. Right away,
when he is introduced as a lieutenant, he waves it off as unimportant—he just
wants to be one of the guys.

What makes Billy Wilder better than most writers is that his
stories are not just a series of events strung together. His stories have a
point—a reason for being told. In this story we learn something about the
danger jumping to conclusions before we have all the facts, and just how wrong
we can be. In the end, the prisoners learn that they should have not been so
quick to judge while Sefton learns the same thing.

Billy Wilder with his six Oscars

Knowing how to make a fun, entertaining film that has a
meaningful theme at its core is what helped win Wilder six Academy Awards and a
place in film history as one of the giants. Believe me, if you learn how to
master this aspect of the craft of storytelling there may be a few awards in
your future, too.

Monday, December 03, 2012

“A wise man can learn more
from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” –
Bruce Lee

In English we use the word “why” to ask questions, but we also use “why,”
rhetorically, to mean that one shouldn’t, to criticize. When we are annoyed by
people we might say, “Why do people act like that?” But it is not meant as a
question as much as a condemnation.

When it comes to story structure, I often get questions from
students that are not questions. I remember once talking about the structure of
Finding Nemo and a woman asked me,
almost angrily, “Why do so many of the mothers die in these stories?” She meant,
“I hate when they do that.”

This is really common—we ask questions without wanting an
answer. Often we think we know the answer. We often don’t ask a real “why,” an
honest “why,” a “why” without judgment. A “why” without assuming the answer. A
pure “why.” Until we train ourselves to do, that we will never get to the true
answer.

We have to take the time to ponder. Pondering is an essential part of asking why. And it may take, days, weeks,
months or even years before you have come to a conclusion where all of the
puzzle pieces click together. Even then, your answer may change and evolve as
you learn more.

“Why?” and I are lifelong companions. I often ask “why”
because no one else will. There is a scene in the HBO biopic Temple Grandin where the autistic Grandin is at a slaughterhouse
and asks why the cows are mooing.

She is dismissed for asking such a question, but Grandin’s
reasoning was that cows are prey animals, and would not make sounds
unnecessarily to call attention to themselves.A moo alerts predators to their location, so they would not
do it without cause. She asked a real “why” and got a real answer. The cows
were stressed. They were alarmed. There were too many things around that
spooked them. It was through asking this question that Temple Grandin was able
to help design more humane slaughterhouses.

I, to the best of my knowledge, am not autistic, but I am
dyslexic and dyslexics are known to think this way, too. When Temple Grandin
asked that question, it reminded me so much of myself. It is exactly the kind
of question I would have to ask.

In my ongoing quest to understand my brain and why it works
the way it does, I just read a great book called The Dyslexic Advantage by Brock L. Eide, M.D., M.A., and Fernette F. Eide,M.D. One of the traits they mention is that dyslexics have a compulsion to know
why. I know this is true for me. It is difficult for me to grasp anything fully
until I understand why. So most of my “whys” are honest ones. I need to know.

So, why do so many
mothers die in fairytales and other stories? I could be wrong, but I have
pondered it, and had even before I was asked the question.

If stories are told and re-told because they contain
survival information, as I and others have argued, then why so many stories
with deceased moms?

Because, I think, for most of human history this was not an
uncommon occurrence. Mothers did die, often in childbirth. But children need to
know that life goes on and that they can survive even this ordeal. In BrunoBettelheim’s book on the subject of fairytales, The Uses of Enchantment, he points out that often there is fairy godmother
or some such figure that is a kind of ghost of the mother looking after her
child even after death.

Mothers want their children to survive even if, God forbid,
they are no longer there to take care of them.

Stories are dress rehearsals for life’s ordeals, so that
when we confront a problem we are better equipped to deal with them. And no
matter how our world advances technologically, we still face the same basic
problems that humanity has always faced.We need to eat, find love, protect and feed our children. We still fear
death and wonder what happens when we do die, just as did that famous Danish
prince:

HAMLET: Alas, poor Yorick! I knew
him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy; he hath borne
me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is!
My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how
oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of
merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar?

Stories are rehearsals for life’s problems. Stories allow us
to face and survive many of life’s dilemmas in our imaginations, so that when
confronted with such problems they are not wholly new to us, and we can better
navigate them. And because we have the same basic problems as humans have
always had, with mainly superficial changes, stories will by necessity have
many repeating patterns.

Many storytellers today, upon noticing these patterns, ask,
“Why do they always do that?” But it’s not a real “why,” if they vow not to use
this pattern themselves. “I’m going to do something that no one has ever done,”
they proclaim. They change things without asking an honest “why.”

Sometimes the answer is that many storytellers have been
lazy and followed the story patterns without asking “why” themselves. This too
is a mistake. But often the pattern has stayed in place because it helps make
the story’s point clearly.

Many storytellers want to know what makes their story
unique, then, if they are going over such a well-worn path. The answer is you. You are the only one with your particular set of
experiences and if you filter what you write through those experiences and make
honest observations about what it means to be a human being trying to survive
in this world, even those old dusty story patterns will shine like new.

But that will only happens if you know why, or why not to,
use certain story devices.And the
only way to do that is to ask with humility and sincerity, “Why do they always
do that?”